One energy company is loving the oil crash

While some energy companies have been cutting jobs and capital
expenditure forecasts, the impact on low oil prices has not been
uniform across the board.

For companies like Phillips 66, the drop in oil prices has been
felt less because it is not an exploration and production company
that drills raw crude.

Phillips primarily refines and transports oil products, and
declining oil prices have served to boost the company's margins.

In a note Thursday, Goldman's David Kostin highlighted the
following comments CEO Greg Garland made during its fourth
quarter earnings call last month.

And Garland was upbeat.

"I think people are discounting the impact of $50 crude
globally in terms of economic activity, demand for petrochemical
products. In fact, we’re seeing increased demand for even refined
products," Garland said.

Goldman estimates that lower gas prices represents a $175 billion
tax cut for consumers, and expects to see more discretionary
spending across the board.

Phillips 66 beat earnings expectations in the fourth quarter of
2014. Earnings rose 39% to $1.15 billion or $2.05 a share, versus
$826 million or $1.347 a share the previous year.

On Friday, Brent crude oil rose above $60 for the first time in
2015 to a high of $61.74 per barrel. It's still down as much as
40% from its 2014 high. West Texas Intermediate crude rallied up
to 3.2% to $52.85 a barrel.

We are seeing fairly robust demand in the US for
[petrochemicals]. Europe is kind of moving sideways, Asia had
weakened in the fourth quarter, but looks like they may be coming
back to us. And so I think that fundamentally demand is
going to be good for petrochemical products, and there is not a
lot of new capacity coming on at 2015. So we’re seeing
globally marginally higher operating rates, which directionally
should be positive for margins.